Why Mitt Romney Won’t Be President

by Stuart Shapiro

After the 2008 election, I was sure that Mitt Romney would be the Republican nominee in 2012.  He wants it so bad and the competition is weak, I figured.  And Repubicans have a habit of nominating the “next in line” for president (all nominees since Goldwater fall in this category).  But once health care reform passed, I changed my mind.  Politico supplies the evidence that HCR will destroy Romney.

“I guarantee that, at the top of everyone’s list on how to differentiate your guy from Mitt Romney, the top of the list is health care — until and unless he takes the opportunity to say, ‘We tried, and it didn’t work. The individual mandate at the heart of Obamacare and Romneycare was wrong,’” said Bill Pascoe, a Republican strategist who wrote a post on his blog earlier this year titled “Say Goodbye to Mitt.” . . .

“I would advise him to acknowledge he made a mistake,” said L. Brent Bozell, president of the Conservative Victory Committee, who has been critical of Romney in the past for his stance on social issues. “You are defending a sinking ship. Put it this way, I don’t know of any other potential candidate who has as big of a potential single-issue problem as this one.”

That’s exactly right.  The Republican nominee will have to say health care reform didn’t work.  Romney can’t say that credibly.  As a result, he will get eviscerated in the Republican primaries.  And Obama will be free of a threat from one of the stronger Republican candidates.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.